Acceptance
by Lord Gamma
Summary: One-Shot. Pyrrha's final thoughts and feelings before dying.


This is Pyrrha Nikos.

The most powerful huntress of her generation, the fastest, the strongest. She is the best there is, perhaps the best there will ever be. The world called her the unbeatable girl, the fearless champion. But fear lives inside everyone, chewing away at the walls around her heart.

Children on Mistral tell stories about the Gods that live within the planet, those that power everything from Dust to Aura. But Pyrrha's fear is another kind of God, a cold kind, a dead kind. But not nearly dead enough.

Years ago Pyrrha had seen a truly ancient Grimm, one so immeasurably old that even the mightiest of huntsmen and huntress' turned and fled. It was so long ago that she could hardly remember why her father had taken her there… but she had never forgotten the eldritch monster.

It had scared her, an ancient Grimm that had slain hunters by the hundreds. She knew then that everything dies, and in time even that Grimm would burn out. This is the kind of fear that lives within Pyrrha Nikos - the Dead God that claimed anything and everything. Every day she wrestles with this fear but for all her strength she can't push it back, she's losing. And nothing can stop the cold dead voice within her mind that whispered in her darkest moments that all things die. Even stars burn out.

Now, no wisdom of her family, no teaching of Beacon came to her that could choke the Dead God down. But there was an answer, one she had for years hidden from sight. Pyrrha staggered, agony blooming through her leg from the arrow in her heel. It was simple, she had made her decision. To live with the fear of death and dying, or to let it go and move towards her fate. "Do you believe in destiny?" She asked of her would be murderer, Cinder's eyes staring down at her.

Cold venom filled the Maiden's eyes, black fury called forth from the depths of her soul. "Yes."

The bow was called forth, Pyrrha's eyes settling upon the weapon that would kill her.

The Dead God again tried to whisper to her of fear and failure, of weakness, of inevitable death. But with one mental hand, Pyrrha caught it and crushed away its voice. She broke its power with a single effortless twist. She was going to die, and that was _okay_.

The string was drawn back, the arrow pointing directly to her heart.

 _I am Pyrrha Nikos._ She whispered to herself as she ground fear of death to ash beneath her mental heel, _and you? You are nothing._

It was ironic, Pyrrha couldn't help but think as the arrow thundered into her chest, her eyes closing as her heart was pierced. She had become finally what they had all called her: the unbeatable girl, the champion with no fear. _She wasn't afraid to die_.

But then Pyrrha opened her eyes once more, the first dawn on light in her universe brings pain, the light burns her. It will _always_ burn her. She can hear herself gasping for breath, it comes hard and harsh and scrapes at nerves that are already raw. But she cannot stop it, she cannot even slow it down.

It is only when she tries to speak, and only the bearest of gasps of pain escape her throat that she realises the simple truth that had escaped her for her entire life. One single moment that she finally understands that there was no Dead God. There was no greater meaning to life. No great truth, no perspective altering revelation. There was only her, only death and the end of all things.

It is in this blazing moment, in which she finally understands the trap of being a huntress. The final cruelty Remnant. A lifetime wasted on an ideal that could never truly be achieved, poured into an uncaring void that won't remember her or even take notice of her passing.

Weakly Pyrrha reached out towards the Maiden that has destroyed her, but she is so far less now than what she was. She is like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf. She can remember where the power of her soul and spirit was, but the power she can touch is but a memory. Now the shadow is all she has left. Because the shadow understands her, the shadow forgives her for dying alone in an unwinnable battle. The shadow gathers Pyrrha unto itself, and her vision flairs brightly like the sun for a single blazing moment…

And then there was only darkness, forever more.

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

 **So what did you all think of my first fic? I really wanted to show a deeper thought process for Pyrrha here, even if it was dark and rather morbid. This is because I never really understood why Pyrrha felt the need to run off to fight Cinder when she** _ **knew**_ **Cinder had just killed Ozpin. It wasn't a fight she could hope to survive, let alone win.**

 **And so this came to me, that Pyrrha** _ **wanted**_ **that outcome. To let go of her fears and worries of a world that doesn't care, to accept that and move forward in the face of it - to her death in fact.**

 **Anyway, leave a review!**


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